There are a large number of tents and other quickly erectable instant shelters used for a wide variety of purposes. Apart from personal tents and the like, most instant shelters require some sort of anchoring into the ground in order to resist wind loading. However, there are terrain conditions where an instant shelter cannot be anchored to the ground. Where the shelter is to be erected on rock, loose fill, gravel, snow, ice and even certain types of irregular terrain, the ground cannot be used as the medium into which the shelter is anchored.
Accordingly, it is a major purpose of this invention to provide an instant shelter which can be raised on a wide variety of terrain and which does not require an anchor that is sunken into the ground to provide anchorage against wind.
Heavy, rigid structures can be used on terrain where the structure cannot be anchored to the terrain. However, heavy rigid structures cannot be brought to all the various places where an instant shelter is required.
Accordingly, it is a further purpose of this invention that the instant shelter be light weight for its size and further that it be collapsible or foldable into a relatively compact arrangement so that it can be readily shipped to locations where required.
Many conditions under which an instant shelter is required call for erection of the shelter in a short time period, by few personnel and in inclement weather.
Accordingly, it is a further purpose of this invention that the instant shelter provided be simple to erect so that it can be put up quickly and so that its erection requires no more than two inexperienced men.
To assure rapid erection of the shelter in a wide variety of places, it is a further purpose of this invention that the instant shelter require only simple equipment for erection of the shelter and instructions which can be simply set forth and can be followed by relatively inexperienced personnel.
From a practical point of view, it is of course important that all of the above purposes be achieved in a structure which is not only a simple structure but is also rugged and can be fabricated from relatively inexpensive materials.